California attorney general Edmund Brown Jr. today sent a letter to 10 major bank and loan servicers in the state calling for the disclosure of their detailed plans to help certain homeowners manage the drastic payment increases on their pay option adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs).
California homeowners hold nearly 60% of the nation’s pay option ARMs originated between 2004 and 2008, the attorney general’s office said. Nationally, about 1m of these loans are schedule to reset in the next four years, creating higher payments for many loans on the brink of negative equity.
California accounted for more than 25% of the nation’s foreclosure activity in Q309, the attorney general’s office said, with 250,000 homes receiving foreclosure filings in the state. In addition, foreclosure activity increased nearly 20% from 2008 to 2009, and Brown said pay option ARMs could make that problem worse.
“Homeowners with Pay Option ARMs are sitting on ticking time bombs that the lending industry has the power to defuse,” Brown said. “Unless these banks and loan servicers act quickly, hundreds of thousands of mortgages will reset across the state, creating a new wave of foreclosures.”
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